Modou:
In the Gambia the greatest natural potentials are to be found within the
agricultural sector. Moreover, the mojority as we know are the poor living
in small villages in the rural areas. The country has very limited and
poorly diversified natural endowment places severe strains on her capacity
to expand the range of economic activities. Apart from the fishing industry,
there are few economically important non-agricultural resources within the
country´s borders.
The key to economic development in the country i think is to raise
agricultural production and employment by a better utilization of her major
three assets which are; human labour, land and water. I think the
agricultural potentials of the country are in fact very great, but badly
exploited. It is certainlty necessary to increase production of food, but
measures introduced for that purpose must be supplemented with a policy
aimed at the elimination of hunger, poverty and unemployment. There must
also be consumers able to pay for the food they so need. There must be
sufficient resources and stimulating incentives for the workers in the
fields to increase production. In order to accomplish this, the present
structures of government policy towards agriculture must be changed.
By fovouring and accentuating only the production of groundnuts in the
countryside, this mean reduction in output of other products. This can be
followed by depressed prices on other commodities, profitability on other
agricultural products can be deteriorating and even employment can suffer.
On the area of private and collective ways of organizing agriculture, i do
not think that an individual - oriented approach towards rural development
is surely doomed to failure, and a prerequisite for a genuine development
favouring the poor is that they themselves get organized for pure defensive
purposes: to liberate themselves from outside competition, difficulties on
acquiring loan from the banks or money lenders and to overcome other
problems.
I am looking forward to your article. Commends are accepted with pleasure!
Take care!
Thanks for sharing!
SS.Jawara
Stockholm, Sweden.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Momodou S Sidibeh" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, March 15, 2002 5:29 PM
Subject: Re: Another Milestone reached - Trade Versus Assistance.
> Saul Jawara and Gassa,
>
> I suspect you were both not referring to me in your postings. But that is
> not the reason why I am writing. Fact is I normally tend to throw away
such
> issues into a rock pile of bushleague questions, and so I have not even
once
> commented on any of them. I mean stuff like Blair overflying Banjul,
> relations with the U.S, Gambia's trading status, are all symptoms of a big
> disease: Gambia's economic insignificance. In Gambia, there is no
homegrown
> money, and the little that comes around by way of grants and loans is
> largely homeless! There is no oil, no minerals, only a little fruit and
> flowers and peanuts. In fact we are so tiny (globally speaking) our name
is
> sometimes left out of the charity list. [When, sometime in the 1980s, the
> EEC was granting aid to coutnries affected by the Sahelian drought,
Gambia's
> name was abruptly left out from the list including countries as far apart
as
> Chad and Senegal. Jawara's ministers braced up for a fight, demanding
"What
> About Us?" from the Brussel bureaucracy?]
>
> Secondly. Dave Manneh paraphased Chomsky here, remember? If the leading
> mafia don in town says baa and all the goons say boo against international
> terrorism, little Gambia might just make the grade to get its name in
> Washington's good book. Of course it is good that the APRC government
> nurtures its relations with Washington. U.S aid and grants and diplomatic
> parasol will always come in handy. There is nothing wrong with our living
by
> our wits. On the other hand we should not fool ourselves: For more than
> thirty years, successive Jawara regimes enjoyed the support, diplomatic
and
> economic, of the entire Western world. What did Gambia benefit from that
> good name? ZERO! minus hundreds of millions in debt!
>
> Gassa wrote
> "...I for one is for the utilisation of both grants/loans whilst at the
same
> time change our attitude from that of over dependency on loans/grants to
> that of production and hard work....We must also sensitise our peoples
about
> our ever growing population. We must not use the raising of huge families
as
> insurance against posible poverty or destitution in old age. It is counter
> productive these days".
>
> I have no problems with Gassa's concern and sincerity. But I suspect his
> reasoning here is tangled up. How do you rely on grants and aid while
> fighting dependency? What in fact is over dependency? Such a position
needs
> obvious qualification?
> But more importantly, birth control in the Third World has for long been
> part of the tacky and matted aresenal of eager-beaver Western academics in
> their crusade against population growth. Afrcia is under-populated, and
> ignorance there is widespread. Raising many children is used as an
insurance
> policy precisely because people are poor. What has been practically proven
> is that improving living standards (say by raising incomes of the poor)
and
> educating women are the best guarantees against using children as policy
> agents while ageing without pensions. Such cruthcy phrases are dismal
> because they tend to blame the African condition on our reproductive
organs,
> subliminally dumping the entire realm of politics and economics into the
> safer retreat of biology. This way politicians and numbers junkeys are
> absolved from their natural responsibilities. That must not be allowed!!!
>
> Saul Jawara on the other hand has just shown tremendous courage in
> confessing that he is a pessoptimist. I truly sympathise with him.
>
> Have a Good Day!
>
> Sidibeh,
> Stockholm/Kartong
>
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